Re-elect Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York

For nearly four years, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has used his formidable political skills to achieve major advances for New York. He pressured and ultimately persuaded some Republican legislators to allow same-sex marriage in the state in 2011. That provided momentum for marriage equality nationally and changed many lives for the better. At least 30,000 same-sex couples have celebrated legal marriages in the state since the law changed.

He pushed through the strongest gun-control measure in the country after the mass killing of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. The new law expanded the ban on automatic weapons and big ammunition magazines and requires background checks for private gun sales, changes that are an improvement to public safety. Many voters upstate have anti-Cuomo bumper stickers and lawn signs registering their anger at the gun control bill. These are badges of political courage for Mr. Cuomo.

His budgets have been on time, and though his tax policies have favored the wealthy, he managed to get higher credit ratings for the state for the first time in decades.

While The Times’s editorial board chose not to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary in September, we recommend Mr. Cuomo for re-election on the basis of these achievements. His Republican challenger, Rob Astorino, the Westchester County executive, does not have broad experience and, on many issues, is out of step with most New Yorkers and the needs of this state.

The decision not to endorse in the primary between Mr. Cuomo and his challenger, Zephyr Teachout, a national expert on political corruption and campaign reforms, reflected our disappointment with Mr. Cuomo’s failure to make good on his promise — made four years ago — to clean up Albany. It is our hope that, if Mr. Cuomo is elected to a second term, he will devote the next four years to achieving genuine, meaningful reform of Albany’s political culture, which remains mired in corruption.

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His first order of business should be to use his political muscle to change the sham campaign finance laws that have turned Albany into a place that best serves moneyed interests and the politicians in hock to them.

That means reducing contribution limits to candidates; ending unlimited donations to party “housekeeping” accounts; and prohibiting contributions from limited liability corporations, which are used by corporations and individuals to give essentially unlimited amounts of money to candidates. And the most crucial reform is public financing for campaigns — the best way to inject competition into legislative races now almost controlled entirely by incumbents.

Mr. Cuomo himself has benefited from lax rules that have allowed him to raise nearly half of the $45 million for his campaign mostly from the developers and lobbyists giving $40,000 or more. Mr. Cuomo has said that while he supports reforms, the Legislature refuses to play ball. He could set a decent example for Albany lawmakers by refusing to take tainted, albeit legal, pots of money himself. That might allow him to shame the Legislature into acting; now, lawmakers can point to his finances and jeer. Reforming his own practices might also help restore his reputation after his sudden shutdown of the anti-corruption Moreland Commission, which had started looking into issues that may have involved his political supporters. A United States attorney has now taken up that work.

Another major disappointment was Mr. Cuomo’s failure to veto redistricting maps in 2012. Those maps were designed by legislators to thwart competition and harden the status quo in Albany. A state constitutional amendment on the November ballot — Proposal One on revising the state’s redistricting procedure — would undoubtedly make things worse. Mr. Cuomo should stop pushing for this deeply flawed measure.

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Mr. Cuomo’s Republican opponent, Mr. Astorino, has not shown that he is ready to take over such a large and diverse state. He was re-elected in 2013 to a second term as executive of Westchester County, a relatively wealthy swath of suburban New York City. He is against abortion rights, and he has said that he wants to weaken the Cuomo gun-control law. His tax policies would provide even more rewards for the wealthy than Mr. Cuomo’s. His continuing attempts to fight a 2009 court order to end segregation patterns in zoning have resulted in the loss of millions of federal dollars to his community. Mr. Astorino also wants to get rid of the Common Core education standards, a crucial effort to improve academics across the state. That would be another mistake.

Another candidate, Howie Hawkins of the Green Party, is a dedicated environmentalist who wants a minimum wage of $15 an hour and free tuition to state colleges, among other progressive proposals. His candidacy is unrealistic, but his ambitious ideas are useful goads to the governor from the left.

Mr. Cuomo has proposed a new list of campaign promises, including an infrastructure bank that would use some of the money from recent bank settlements and other sources to help repair bridges or other facilities around the state. If done right, that bank could help with another promise to transform LaGuardia Airport, other state airports and transit facilities in the New York City area.

Mr. Cuomo promises that he would push the Legislature to pass the entire Women’s Equality Act. It includes pay equity, tougher human trafficking laws and stronger state protections for abortion rights. He wants to expand cooperation between businesses that need skilled workers and the state’s education system. He vows to fight to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and pass an expanded Dream Act to allow immigrants to apply for tuition assistance at state colleges. And he says he would seek public financing of “all statewide and legislative races” as part of extensive campaign finance reforms.

For those reasons, despite our criticisms, we support Mr. Cuomo for re-election. He is a strong governor who has shown he can end legislative inertia when it suits him. He needs to use those powers to clean up New York State’s government.